January 12, 2009
Coaches Shouldn't Be Forced To Crown Florida
By Brian ColellaAfter the BCS National Championship Game on Thursday night, few people could argue that Florida did not deserve the title. Granted, they had one loss, by one point to a surprising Ole Miss team that ended the season ranked 14th overall in the AP poll. Aside from that misstep, the Florida Gators piled up thirteen wins, six against top-25 ranked opponents, and only two of those opponents, Florida State and South Carolina, were outside the top ten.
Along the way they may have sprinkled in some cupcake opponents such as the Citadel, but to play nearly half of your schedule against ranked opponents is a rare sight from a major “football factory” school such as Florida. To finish the season with wins over number one ranked Alabama in the SEC Championship game and then over Alabama’s successor to the top spot, Oklahoma, is a feat definitely worthy of the title National Champion.
In this case, many members of the sports media are ready to dismiss any controversy regarding the BCS system, because with such an undeniable result, it seems the ends justify the means. Well, why shouldn’t that be true? If we can’t complain about the final BCS standings, why should we complain about the BCS process?
But the central problem is not necessarily the lack of a playoff, it's that the BCS has so much control over what the bowls mean. When you have a team such as Utah that goes undefeated including two wins over ranked teams during the regular season and a commanding 31-17 victory over Alabama in the Sugar Bowl, how do you say they’re not the best team in the country? One of the main reasons the BCS was implemented was to prevent co-champions, but in this case it seems hard to argue against either team.
Nevertheless, Utah ends the season in second place because coaches are contractually obligated, by the BCS, to vote for the BCS title game winner. Right there is one of the most glaring problems with the system. In the quest for ratings and profit, the BCS can effectively limit the possible champions to two teams, and leave out a team from a non-BCS conference. A quick fix to the controversy that leaves the bowl system in place is to remove the title from the title game. Maybe this year the result would have been the same, but at least Utah would have earned a chance to be National Champion by winning all of their games. As it stands, Utah proved they were at least the second best team in the country, but in view of “contractual obligations” that was really the only thing they could do.
But now, even for college football, "hope is on the way" -- whether we want it or not. President-elect Obama has stated his clear preference for a playoff system and has hinted that he might use his power as President to make it happen. Not only that, but there have also been reports that Congress is evaluating the BCS under anti-trust laws to determine the system’s legality.
As one who opposes the current structure of the BCS, I'm conflicted about this. As has been previously written and argued too many times to count, the BCS relies too heavily on votes and calculations instead of wins and losses on the field. Moreover, I, like many others, have a preference for a playoff system that could be reasonably done without infringing on student-athletes’ vacation time or interfering with their education any more than it currently does.
But the BCS is already too political. To make this whole mess even more political by involving the federal government promises to add more confusion, more bureaucracy, and less football. Not only that, but it seems improper for Mr. Obama to use his position of power to push a personal preference.
The benefit of removing the contractual obligation to vote for the title game winner is that it is a short-term solution that would be very simple to implement. In the current system of bowls with sponsor and TV network interests, a complete replacement of the BCS with a playoff is almost completely impossible, or would require a long, complicated process that would not satisfy many of the anti-BCS voices for years.
Restricting possible champions to only the two teams in the BCS title game means that a team with one or two losses has a very long road to travel to get the title, as Florida proved with their difficult schedule. To avoid that critical loss, teams are scheduling more and more weak opponents during the regular season. However, if coaches were allowed to vote for the champion of the Sugar Bowl, Orange Bowl, or whomever they deemed worthy, schools would take on more difficult schedules so that when their record is under review at the end of the season they could earn that #1 vote. The side-effect of that would be that as fans we would experience much better regular season football.
So what would be worse? Co-champions, or what we have now: a single “champion” that no one can say, definitively, is the best team in the country. Currently, the BCS gives us a false sense of security by manufacturing a “definitive” champion with computer rankings and coaches’ polls. The lie in the system is that the coaches’ poll is subjective, and yet with a contractual obligation to vote for the BCS Championship Game victor, those coaches’ opinions are decided for them.
Get rid of the obligation; Make the poll the subjective survey it claims to be, and, as a result, the BCS would instantly become much more fair. That simple fix would put the burden on schools to play a more competitive schedule and give them more incentive to win their bowl game. If Utah had been allowed to receive #1 votes from coaches and still finished in second place, they would have no reason to blame the BCS. The champion should either be decided by polls or decided by on-field performance, but not a convoluted mixture that invalidates the results on both sides.
